


Wayward Cycles

by ALittleWrath



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Depression, Gen, I'm sick of TenDonna fics that say they can be read as platonic or romantic, More implied manic depression but that's up to you I guess, Other, this should be read as platonic AND romantic!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-11-28 14:02:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20967758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ALittleWrath/pseuds/ALittleWrath
Summary: Donna notices a pattern. The TARDIS helps her find what she's looking for.





	Wayward Cycles

Donna hasn't been in the TARDIS very long, the first time the Doctor disappears.

It's after their first trip, after Pompeii- well, technically their second trip- _ well, _ actually, their third trip, counting her wedding day and the Adipose. But it's their first _ official _trip, the city lost to time, and boy is it a doozy.

Donna might not know everything about the Doctor, but she knows how hard that must have been for him.

And then the next day, after everything is said and done, the Doctor is nowhere to be found.

She looks everywhere- sort of. He hasn't given her a proper tour yet, so she can't be certain she checked everywhere, but she spends a decent chunk of time wandering around the halls, searching for hide or hair of the elusive Timelord. She comes across a kitchen that looks woefully unused, a small worksop that looks, if anything, _ over- _ used, a library with a television in the middle of the sitting area, and her own bedroom, but no Doctor. No matter where she goes, though, the rooms seem to loop around, shuffling around and changing order, and for quite some time she thinks she must be lost, before she realises what's _ really _ happening; she couldn't get lost if she tried, _ literally. _

So she decides to spend the day in the library. Yes, a nice quiet day to recuperate from the stress of the prior days excursion, it's exactly what she needs and probably what the Doctor is off doing as well. She wanders around the tall oaken shelves, pulling out books at random until she finds a few that are in English- _ isn't the TARDIS meant to translate everything?- _ then makes herself cozy in a loveseat next to what looks like what would be a marvelous fireplace, if only she trusted the Doctor with fire. Her concerns are met, though, about ten minutes later, when the fireplace magically bursts to life without her having to touch a thing. She says thank you, then wonders who that could've possibly been directed to. _ The fireplace? _After whiling the hours away reading all day, she heads to the kitchen, serendipitously finding everything she needs to make her mother's Shepherd's pie. 

Lather, rinse, repeat. It's two more days of this; the Doctor nowhere to be found, Donna curled up in the library for hours, then making herself the sort of meal that takes such effort and preparation that she normally wouldn't have the time or patience. She starts to wonder if the alien will ever resurface. Maybe she'll never see him again, and she'll spend the rest of her life reading and cooking alone in a maze-like time machine parked in the time vortex. Won't that be nice.

On the fourth day, the Doctor finally emerges, shouting her name from the console room.

"Where've you been?" He asks nonchalantly when Donna catches up with him. She gapes at him, opening and closing her mouth like a fish as she tries to decide whether to even dignify his ridiculous query with a scathing reply. "No matter, just tell me where you wanna go, I'm getting restless!"

He takes her to an exotic jungle moon, where they watch the flora and fauna from a tall observation deck that seems long abandoned. They go back in time to fraternise with Russian aristocracy, and they end up making up their own dance. He shows her human colonies on other planets, and they spend a week dining out at fancy future restaurants.

It must be almost three weeks before he disappears again, but he does. She runs excitedly into the console room, like she's done just about every morning since they'd started traveling together, calling his name, only to find it completely empty. At first she thinks maybe he's just having breakfast for once, or taking his time in the shower, but a good sit down on the grate flooring and an indeterminate amount of time waiting yield no results. She checks the kitchen and his workshop, and tentatively the loo, but finds nothing.

She's a little more familiar with the TARDIS now; After his little disappearing act, the Doctor explains that the TARDIS is a vast and dangerous thing, and as such she only reveals herself piece by piece to newcomers, so that they may adjust themselves to the sight of her, and had probably just supplied whichever rooms she'd expected Donna to find most use in. _ Her?, _ Donna asks, and the Doctor confirms that the TARDIS is very much alive. _ She has a psychic presence, and can touch your mind, _ he says, and Donna's only response is that that must be why she felt the need to thank the fireplace, much to the Doctor's amusement. Over time, she starts finding more rooms, more strange spaces to inhabit- there's an Olympic sized pool with glistening white water, a beautiful greenhouse filled with wild and luxurious plants, a wardrobe that seems to go on forever. Donna wonders why on earth the TARDIS wouldn't show her the wardrobe first, but understands about a half hour later when she can no longer see the door. Now, she thinks, would be the perfect time to investigate. She spends a good chunk of day bustling around the wardrobe- making sure, this time, to keep the door in sight- looking for something new. She'd brought clothes, of course, but they were boring Earth clothes from her own time period, purchased at half price at the local department store. The TARDIS wardrobe was like the ultimate costume shop, except nothing in it was _ costume, _every piece a sturdy work of quality cottons, silks and leathers. She finds some interesting scarves and jewelry she'd thought she'd only ever dream of, declares ownership of a particularly nice leather coat, and stumbles upon a classic floppy brown fedora, although that one gets left behind.

When a day or two goes by without any sign of the Doctor, she starts to overthink. What is it he does, when he disappears like this? After the first time, she'd thought maybe she'd just _ missed _ him somehow, that he'd really been in his workshop the whole time. She'd found out shortly after that the space was dedicated to tinkering in the middle of the night when he couldn't sleep- or rather _ didn't _ sleep. The Doctor swore up and down that Timelords didn't need nearly as much sleep as humans, and that some nights he just wouldn't, although she had trouble believing that was the whole truth. Still, it made her put his missing days out of her mind- probably just getting distracted with some bizarre project. Now though, she has the foresight to check on the workshop every few hours, and he certainly isn't using it. It causes her to wonder why the TARDIS even showed it to her in the first place, especially within her first week aboard- _ whatever rooms you'd find the most use in, _ The Doctor had said, and it's starting to feel like the workshop was only there so Donna could see that he _ wasn't in it. _

So she gets a bit of an idea in her head.

She goes back to the library with a notebook, and starts looking for books about Timelords. There won't be a lot, she knows, not in English at least, but she's seen the Doctor write himself enough sticky notes that she's fairly certain she can recognise Gallifreyan. She winds up with one book about Gallifrey written in English, and five books about who-knows-what written in Gallifreyan. She plops down in her loveseat and starts reading the one in English, and mostly gets exactly what she expected- myths, conjecture, and speculation, no concrete evidence or eye witness accounts, just heresy and theories. There's some light history, but nothing like what Donna is looking for- except, on page 142, there's a few examples of Gallifreyan symbols and what they mean.

Donna ends up sprinting back to the console room, plucking some of the Doctors sticky notes off the monitor, and rushing back to her spot in the library. She starts jotting down different symbols and their translations in her notebook, and before long she has something that almost looks like an alphabet. It takes two more days to fill in the blanks, and the next the Doctor is in the console room.

"Oh, this aught'a be good." Donna says, approaching him, "He disappears for half a week, then pops back up like nothing! Do you wanna travel with me or not, sunshine!?"

The Doctor turns to her, incredulous.

"Oi! I was busy, alright?"

"Busy?! What could you have possibly been doing aboard this ship, for_ four and a half days, _ that was so _ pressing _you couldn't even be bothered to tell me!"

"I wasn't on the ship!" The Doctor snaps back, leaning in a little closer than Donna would prefer.

_ "Wasn't on the ship _my arse!" Donna shouts, "We were parked in the time vortex!"

The Doctor glares, before turning back to the console.

"Why're you so concerned anyway? I reserve the right, mind you, to do whatever it is I deem appropriate when we aren't traveling, in my own time on my own ship!"

"Oh so you_ were _ on the ship."

The Doctor groans, then quickly throws the TARDIS into drive.

She drops it, but she doesn't forget. She keeps going to the library, and starts trying to read the Gallifreyan books, but quickly realises the problem- she may have the alphabet figured out, but it's still another language; the words are all gibberish to her. So she starts transposing it into her notebook, only to find that without the Gallifreyan symbols, the TARDIS begins to translate.

This time, it only takes a week and a half for the Doctor to disappear again.

Donna wants to be _ furious, _ but she still has a goal to accomplish. She walks up and down the library aisles, writing down the titles of different Gallifreyan books and waiting for the TARDIS to translate, and after two hours she finally finds what she's been looking for this whole time- a large textbook titled _ Gallifreyan Biology. _

She swipes the book and gets to work transposing the table of contents, the TARDIS translating almost as fast as she can write. It doesn't take her long to find a passage on sleep cycles. The Doctor says he doesn't need as much sleep- maybe that isn't the full truth. He'll stay up for days at a time; maybe, Donna thinks, Timelords just have a longer cycle. Maybe they stay awake for a week or so, then catch up on all their sleep at once, a few days at a time.

_ The average Gallifreyan requires 2-4 hours of sleep a night. _

Well that doesn't align with the Doctor _ at all. _

Great, Donna thinks bitterly as she slams her book shut, so all she's learned from this project is that the Doctor has been lying to her about his insomnia. _ Brill. _ Still, she can't help but feel like she's _ onto _ something. _ Okay, one more time. _ So the Doctor goes days at a time without sleeping when he shouldn't, then suddenly disappears. _ Why doesn't he sleep?, _she asks herself. She supposes it could be bad dreams- god knows he's seen enough that a peaceful sleep might not be easy to achieve, but something else nags at the back of her mind.

Typically, when Donna hears the Doctor shuffling around in the middle of the night, it's after- or _ during, _ depending how long it lasts- one of those odd… _ energetic _ spells he gets, the ones where he talks too fast and can't sit still and gets too _ fixated _ on whatever his immediate idea is, the ones where Donna can look into his eyes and see that the Doctor is still in the driver's seat, but the wheel is locked and he's stuck in third gear.

_ This is nonsense, _ she thinks to herself, finally standing up and putting her books down, _ this is nothing. _ She still hasn't even _ looked _for the Doctor yet today. Maybe by now, the TARDIS will finally reveal enough of itself that she can find him.

She storms out of the library and down the corridor, turning and twisting with the halls, until a certain point- at which she realises that there haven't been any other doors.

The TARDIS is leading her somewhere.

For a moment, she second guesses herself- is the TARDIS herding her back to the console room so it can spit her out and rearrange the rooms again? But no, she's fairly certain she'd recognise the path if that were the case- where she is now looks completely unfamiliar. She takes a deep breath, steeling herself, and tentatively moves forward.

Eventually, she comes to a hall with one door at the end, and she recognises what it is immediately. It's utterly juvenile, a large _ KEEP OUT _sign taped on, complete with caution tape and a large nuclear warning sticker. Donna rolls her eyes- it reminds her of her little fifteen year old cousins bedroom.

She gently knocks on the door.

"Doctor?" She calls. "Are you in there?"

When she doesn't receive a reply, she closes her eyes, and slowly pushes the door open.

What she sees, when she looks, is firstly that the room is surprisingly messy for a man who only ever wears the same two suits. The floor is littered with clothes and papers and gadgets, and every surface is equally cluttered with books, soda cans and pens. The lights are dim but not all the way out, and the bed is an unmade mess of crumpled blankets.

And hanging out from under those blankets are the gangly limbs of the Doctor.

He stares blankly at her from his place sprawled out on the bed. He sort of resembles a ragdoll, arms and legs all splayed out limply, no sign of life in his posture, or in his eyes. Donna swallows as she slips into the room.

"Hi," She says quietly.

"Hi," the Doctor returns, although she can barely hear him. Donna smoothes out a section of the bed, and sits down beside the Doctor.

He looks _ awful. _ He looks somehow even paler than usual, with dark circles under his eyes and his clearly unwashed hair plastered to his forehead with sweat, and instead of his signature button downs, he's wearing a red t-shirt with a fake-abs graphic printed on it. What surprises her the most is how… _ small _ he looks, just now. Usually, when the Doctor is stricken with grief or stress, it makes him look older, too experienced, too wise. Right now, he looks _ young, _too young to be where he is. He doesn't look like a seasoned traveller or the last standing warrior of a long-dead people. He just looks like a boy.

"Right, first things first," Donna says, stroking his bangs out of his face. "When did this start?"

The Doctor looks reluctant to share, but eventually utters a quiet, "'Bout two years ago."

Donna nods.

"And when did you think you were gonna tell me?"

Again, the Doctor remains silent for a moment, then says, "I was sort of hoping I wouldn't."

"Wouldn't have to? Or just wouldn't?"

The Doctor grimaces guiltily.

"You probably haven't eaten," She says. That'll help, she thinks, the Doctor always gets excited about food, half the time they eat out he makes himself sick. "I saved you some of my Shepherd's pie; you _ love_ my Shepherd's pie."

"Not hungry." He says. _ Of course not. _

"I've got an idea," Donna says, perking herself up slightly. "Do you think you can get up? Just for a minute?"

The Doctor looks up at her suspiciously.

"Why?"

"You know that telly in the library?" She asks, standing up and picking up one of his blankets with her.

"I mean, I did _ put _it there."

"Oh hush. Does it work?"

"Course it works. Gets every channel and every show across time and space."

"Perfect. What d'you say we go down there, snuggle up, and watch cartoons til bed?"

The Doctor glares at her for a moment, and she almost thinks that she's mortally offended him somehow and that he's about to throw her out- and then, he finally _ smiles _for the first time since she came in. It's an enormous relief.

_ "'Cartoons' _, she says. How did you know?" He asks. Donna shrugs.

"You just seem like the type. So what'dya say?" She offers a hand out to him to help him up.

"... How did you find me?" The Doctor asks. "How did you find my room? Companions can _ never _ find my room."

"Dunno." She says. "Just thought, 'right, I've gotta find the Doctor now.' Not that I hadn't thought that before. But this time, the TARDIS led me straight to you."

The Doctor smirks. "Course she helped you find me. Must've been able to sense that I…"

"You what?"

The Doctor swallows.

"That I wanted you to."

Five minutes later, they're on the couch in front of the television, the Doctor with his head in Donna's lap and a blanket wrapped around them both. They're watching a pastel-y cartoon about aliens that the Doctor says will be incredibly popular in about seven or eight years, and the Doctor is humming along a little with some of the music while Donna strokes his hair, trying to keep it out of his eyes.

"What's that?" He asks suddenly, and when Donna looks down she sees that he's peering at the loveseat next to the fireplace- or more precisely, at the books that she'd haphazardly dropped onto it earlier. She feels her face heat up a bit. "Is that… that's Circular Gallifreyan, sorry, how were you reading that?"

"Look, you kept disappearing and I didn't know why, so I sort of tried to teach myself a dead language. It's like I always say," Donna says with a shrug, "Super temp!"

The Doctor wheezes out a laugh. "Oh, Donna Noble, you sneaky thing!"

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on Tumblr at Chronic-Pain-Crowley


End file.
